Shrimps & Prawns: The Kids’ Favorite

If there is one thing that my kids love to eat other than fried chicken and steak, it would be shrimps. Technically, they love prawns, because they love to eat what they call the “big shrimps”.

Prawns 3s-500x500

During the holidays, they were treated to a seafood fest of tiger prawns via a seafood delivery made to my mom’s house a few days before Christmas. It came as a gift since my mom is now a pesco-vegetarian after battling with cancer a few months ago. She was gifted with a variety of seafoods including her favorite, scallops!

She had the prawns cooked in different ways, kebab style and one fried with butter (my preference and favorite!). Suffice to say, even the pot roast was snobbed on Christmas Eve because of the prawns.

According to sea2kitchen.com, here is the way to pan-fry unshelled raw prawns or shrimp:

Rinse the prawns or shrimp under a cold running water and then pat dry with a paper towel.
Melt some butter together with some olive oil in a large frying pan over a high heat.
Add the prawns with a few cloves of chopped garlic. Season with salt and black pepper to taste.
Fry the prawns, stirring frequently, for 3 – 5 minutes or longer for larger prawns, or until the shells have turned pink.
Remove from the heat and serve immediately.

Cooking Healthy For Your Family on a Budget

While some families find themselves struggling to pay their mortgage or utilities, other families are having trouble simply feeding themselves. This is the sad reality of our struggling economy, forcing families to scrounge for the necessities of life that most people take for granted.

Cooking (Photo credit: o_corgan)

Cooking healthy is usually the last thing on a struggling family’s mind. In most cases, healthy and organic meals tend to be much more expensive than generic prepared food. However, there are ways around this prospective issue — ensuring you can still save money while providing a healthy meal for your family.

The Internet is full of informative resources on how to create quick and inexpensive meals that are healthy. Below are a few popular resources to get you started on your own low-cost healthy cooking.

Digital Coupon Sites

Coupon sites are quickly growing in numbers on the Internet. Since they began popping up, finding savings for the ingredients of meals has never been easier. Users can log on and get coupons through Rewardit and other like websites that offer them in a digital format.

For the most part, you can access these digital coupons on your computer then print them off for physical use at the grocery store. Manufacturer coupons, product coupons and store coupons are all available in digital format. In certain cases, there are even savings that are exclusive to the Internet that people who neglect digital coupons miss out on.

Blogs

Blogs are a fun and interactive way to get involved with cooking healthy and inexpensively. Professionals in the food service industry, people with money-saving tactics, and more all share their expertise through regularly updated blogging. As someone who is looking for ways to cook healthy family meals on a budget, blogs are the perfect way to get the information you need while enjoying yourself at the same time.

You can follow your favorite experts and receive updates to your inbox, ensuring you keep up to date on the latest techniques. Additionally, join in on the conversations with fellow readers and trade money-saving cooking techniques.

Recipe Websites

Saving money is currently a popular topic. Due to this fact, many recipe websites feature entire sections for healthy cooking on a budget. These types of websites show you how to find coupons for specific ingredients of featured recipes and inexpensively create easy meals that are not only healthy for your family, but tasty as well.

Everyone is looking to save money now a days. Unfortunately, food that tends to be unhealthy is generally the most affordable. However, you can still provide healthy family meals without breaking the budget. Consider the above options in your search for coupons that will allow you to cook healthy without overspending.

Homecooked Sunday Lunch

Love Sunday family lunches! Whenever my siblings come to us for a visit, my mom cooks these really delicious meals and my kids just take turns playing with their aunts and uncle and bond over puzzles and iPhone games.

Look what we had for our Sunday lunch!

Aussie steak, potato marbles and salad!
We also had pasta with olives and capers. And a special gravy made from scratch by a friend who is a chef!

Paella

I know paella is a traditional Spanish recipe but since we were under the Spaniards for centuries we are heavily influenced by Spanish cooking. Paella is a many-a-family’s favorite dish to serve in special occasions that it holds true for my family as well. I do not know how to cook and prepare the dish like I do not know to clean hot tub cover but I discovered this recipe that I want to try the soonest:

Ingredients:

½ lbs cuttlefish
½ lbs calamari (squid)
8 big jumbo shrimp
4 spiny lobsters, crayfish or smaller lobsters
12 fresh mussels
2-3 fresh oysters
1 tablespoon of sweet paprika
Olive oil
8 tablespoons of tomatoes, cut into pieces
Saffron
2 ½ cups of rice
2-3 garlic cloves
1 – 1 ½ liters of fish soup

Directions

The fish soup is ideally to be prepared at home, using the head and tail of a fish, some onion, laurel, salt and one tomato. Calamari and cuttlefish are cut into pieces.

Give the oil into a pan and warm it. Add the shrimp and crayfish and fry them for 2 – 3 minutes. Set them aside afterwards. In the very same oil fry the cuttlefish and the calamari (squid). When they turn golden add the tomatoes and the minced garlic. Let them fry until they become darker. After that add the paprika, stir everything and add the rice.

Stir very well for one minute, pour the warm fish soup over it and add another clove of minced garlic.
Let the rice at medium to high heat. After some 10 minutes add the shrimp and crayfish, the mussels and the oysters. Let them cook for another 5 minutes.

Tips

When the rice is ready remove it from the heat and let the rice breath for at least 2-3 minutes until you serve it!

How to Cook Veggies

Most of my friends are trying the detox-juicing method I tried a month ago. A friend stocked up on veggies for a week and I’m pretty sure the pcamerica cash register at the organic produce store was a-ringin’! I saw the reference image above and knew instantly I needed to print it out for my reference. I love veggies and love them even more when they are just in the right crunchy state!

5 Kid-Friendly Breakfast Ideas

Due to the nature of my work, I burn the midnight oil all the time. Before we had help around the house, it was always a race against every morning making sure the kids are ready before the bus arrives and most importantly, have eaten. They sure get tired of eating the same thing again and again like oatmeal and cereals so I am thankful I chanced upon these suggestions:

1. Pancakes. If you’re making pancakes on a Saturday or Sunday, make extra. Lay several on a cookie sheet, slide it into the freezer until they’re firm, then pile into a freezer bag. You can pull two or three out on a crazy morning and microwave them in 10 seconds. Better yet, put them in the toaster.

2. Avocado Toast. So healthy! So easy! I rarely even mash the avocado in a bowl first, which means one less dish to clean. Just smush it down on a piece of toasted bread and sprinkle a bit of salt. Call it guacamole if necessary. Here’s our basic “recipe.”

3. Hard-Boiled Eggs. Not that they take a ton of time, but if you make a few on a Sunday night, you only have to peel them in the morning, and that takes what, 20 seconds? You can slice one onto toast, although I recommend letting a toddler bite into a whole one. The slipperiness of it is fun, and somehow finding the yolk is a surprise every time.

4. Banana Slices with Peanut Butter. Lay out banana slices and top each with a little dab of peanut butter. Protein-packed, sweet, and quick. For an older kid, you can use the slices to make the first letter of his name.

5. Toast with Cream Cheese and Jelly. Most kids like toast with jelly, but jelly alone doesn’t offer a ton of nutritional benefits. Cream cheese and jelly is an underrated combo, and the cream cheese adds a little protein and calcium. You can swirl it if you have time.

Now if only I can work as fast and not be groggy! Can this work? http://www.testosteroneboosters.org/novatest/ It says it helps cell and muscle recovery and give energy boosts!

Comfort Foods

What do I love most about Christmas?
It is the fact that I get to eat my most favorite meal out of my Mom’s cooking!


My mom’s macaroni is the best ever. Seriously! Everybody who has tasted it loves it and swears that there is no macaroni like other. Nurse friends leave with their dickies scrubs a bit tighter at the waist after eating at our Mom’s.


A new favorite is my Mom’s refrigerator cake. She has mastered that art of it not being too sweet and mashes the Graham crackers like the crust in blueberry pies.

So I guess not being able to stick to a diet this holiday season is a given.